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The agency relies heavily on paid informants. Many are poorly supervised and amateurish. But the FBI has been able to get inside countless organizations, including the Mafia, the Ku Klux Klan, the Black Panthers, and Students for a Democratic Society.
One disaffected agent, Robert Wall, recently quit the FBI when he found himself pointlessly transcribing the speeches of antiwar activists although even stronger protests were being voiced by Senators on the floors of Congress. He claimed that agents were engaged in counterprotest activity, sending out fake press releases to confuse or create strife within the peace movement. Clearly, the FBI has no business playing that kind of game.
Another threat to individual liberty is the FBI's ever-expanding files. The types of persons on whom such information is kept should-be sharply restricted and the control over the dissemination of such information tightened. Almost any Government agency, as well as banks and insurance companies, can get the arrest record of any prospective employee. These records often filter into credit agencies. Yet when an arrest is found unwarranted or a person is declared innocent of a crime, the FBI rarely corrects the record. At a minimum, individuals should be allowed to challenge any false information from FBI files that is used against them.
Some 30 professors, writers, former Justice Department officials and ex-FBI agents recently held a conference at Princeton on the FBI. One suggestion called for creation of a board of overseers to review FBI policies and especially to safeguard civil liberties. It could be composed of distinguished persons both within and outside the Government. Others urged development of an ombudsman system, through which anyone could seek help if he felt that his rights were being violated by FBI practices. The conference suggested giving FBI agents the right to criticize FBI policies without facing disciplinary action.
The idea of a reviewing authority, including closer supervision by designated committees of the Congress, seems sound. In its hearings on the nomination of Gray, which are scheduled to continue this week, the Senate Judiciary Committee has been performing a most useful supervisory function and showing a high regard for the proper role of the FBI. What the FBI needs is a director—as well as an Attorney General, with whom he must work closely —who possesses an unshakable sense of the difference between the pursuit of justice and the protection of political interests. The distinction is not all that fuzzy. It seems to have eluded L. Patrick Gray—and Richard Nixon, who appointed him—but an FBI chief who understands that crucial difference should not be hard to find.
* The lineup last week: For Gray—Republicans Marlow Cook, Hiram Fong, Edward Gurney, Roman Hruska, Hugh Scott, Strom Thurmond and Democrat James Eastland. Against Gray—Democrats Birch Bayh, Quentin Burdick, Robert Byrd, Sam Ervin, Philip Hart, Edward Kennedy and John Tunney. Undecided—Republican Charles Mathias and Democrat John McClelland.